Collective Decision-Making: Be a Multiplier

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Multipliers" by Liz Wiseman. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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Why is it more beneficial to make important decisions collectively rather than independently? How do you structure a good workplace debate? What decision-making mistakes should you avoid?

Decision-making Multipliers know how important the collective decision-making process is. They consult as many people as possible and ask debatable questions before carrying out a decision. Diminishers, however, don’t encourage debate and prioritize their own opinions.

Keep reading to learn about the importance of collective decision-making.

Collective Decision-Making

Decision-making Multipliers assume that collective decision-making is better than making decisions alone and consult as many voices as possible when making important decisions. (They know that not everything needs to be debated, but the highest-stakes issues do.)

In addition to leveraging intelligence, encouraging debate has additional advantages:

The shift from decision to execution moves smoothly. Because everyone was involved in the making of a decision, they understand the plan, the reasoning behind it, and the next steps, so there’s no confusion.
Debates reinforce the other disciplines. Debates encourage people to come up with ideas, learn from others, and use their genius by finding a way to apply it to a particular question.

Three Practices of Collective Decision-Making

When you’re making decisions as a group, there are some practices that you can use to encourage better outcomes.

Practice #1: Prepare in Advance for the Debate

To facilitate a productive debate on a pressing issue, the leader must establish parameters. They:

1. Articulate the question. Multipliers choose a question, not a topic (questions produce more productive debates). Ideally, the question is which of two options to choose.

For example, when Lutz took a role with Microsoft’s education business, there were two major problems—the department had little reach and wasn’t meeting its revenue goals. Lutz saw two ways to solve the problems: 1) Continue distributing education through corporate training providers but do it better, or 2) try distributing education through schools instead. His debate question was which of the two options the organization should pursue.

2. Justify the question. Multipliers explain why the question matters, why it requires a debate, and the consequences of not answering the question.

Lutz explained that this decision was very important because it would change how the company interacted with people.

3. Recruit and prepare the team. The leader decides who will participate in the debate and decision-making process, what their roles will be, and what they should prepare in advance. Interestingly, the best decisions tend to come from debates in which everyone has an opinion going in.

Lutz gave everyone on his team two weeks to complete a pre-debate assignment, which was often to find evidence to support their view.

4. Explain the decision-making workflow. The leader explains who will make the decision. Some options include consensus, majority rule, or a particular person (sometimes the leader, but not always).

Practice #2: Start the Debate

A productive debate must be:

Compelling. Everyone is invested in the question.
Complete. All the relevant information is shared.
Objective. Facts are valued more than opinions.
Informative. People learn about both sides of the question.

To achieve this kind of debate, Multipliers:

1. Remove fear of the leader. Fear makes people doubt their position or stay quiet. To remove fear, Multipliers don’t give their opinions until after everyone else has spoken and don’t scold people.

For example, Amit waits until the end of meetings to speak and is both truthful and respectful.

2. Push hard. Multipliers ask hard questions and demand people support their opinions with evidence. They ask everyone to talk. When the group comes to a decision too quickly, Multipliers prod the conversation back to life to ensure the group reaches the best decision, not just a swift one.

For example, in one meeting, most of the senior leaders were in favor of adding a new feature to their website. The CEO asked them to point to evidence that showed adding the factor would increase sales. The senior leaders looked at their data and realized that they didn’t have evidence, so they needed to get more information before making a call.

To practice this technique, realize that the most helpful thing a Multiplier can do in a debate is encourage others to think and produce answers. Use the following techniques to do this:

Collective Decision-Making: Be a Multiplier